TECH STOCKS: A Preseason SlalomTECH STOCKS: A Preseason Slalom

As if investors as a bloc suddenly listened to those few pundits questioning the technology rally, tech shares fell at least twice as hard as the broader market Monday.

Theories about what was behind the sell-off range from common sense to a lack of new economic data. And when you think about it, both ends of that range mean the same thing. Valuations for tech shares are way above where analysts said they should be for a post-bubble world. Selling because there's no news about the broader economy would lead one to think that when people are buying, they aren't doing it because of a company's inherent value.

Of course, virtually no one investing in the stock market has given this much thought to what they're doing, so a keener diagnosis is impossible.

Hardest to fall Monday was our own information 100, which fell 2%, or 6.14 points, to 309.23. The Nasdaq fell 1.5%, or 29.1 points, to 1,941.64. The S&P 500 fell 0.6%, or 6.09 points, to rest at 1,047.11, and the Dow fell 0.5%, or 53.26 points, to 9,756.53.

The Nasdaq-100 index stock, which we site as a decent measure for how individual tech stocks performed, fell 1.1%, or 40 cents, to $35.23. Volume was a respectable 68 million shares.